


Running to the Sea

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: Running to the Sea - Röyksopp (Song)
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Gen, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 01:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14760272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: The King of Faerie chases his prey. Will he catch it? Or will it find safety in the cool dark waters of the Sea?





	Running to the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychomachia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts).



> Dear psychomachia! I hope I managed to recreate the creepiness of the song, at least a little bit. Hope you enjoy!

_"Come join me,"_ the sinister voice reverberates in her mind, louder and louder. _"Join me, my darling. Come closer, closer still. All will be well, when you finally join me. I will forgive you your transgressions, and you will be safe beside me."_

Vittra startled out of the slight doze she had fallen in. She knew that voice, intimately. She didn’t believe a word he was saying. 

This was the voice she heard that kept her pushing onwards, past the last motel with a vacancy, driving further along to the coast, to her place of birth, her natural environment. She regretted leaving, both her people, and the man that wanted to declare himself her husband. Why had she thought living so far from home was a good idea? Her skin was always dry and chaffing, and fish never tasted quite right when it wasn’t fresh. Not to mention the hassle of gravity, of walking on legs and not floating along wherever the streams would flow.

_"You won’t keep me at bay in your pale imitation of iron,"_ the voice continued, now more recognizable as belonging to the person she had left behind—the person she had thought to marry, if only to seal the treaty between their people. _"Leave the car behind."_

It wasn’t real, in the way most voices were real. The voice could only be a projection of the person wielding it, and yet it was powerful. Was he waiting behind the small shrubbery, only hoping for her to escape the small space she had fortified behind?

She tried turning on the motor one more time. It stuttered, then died a lonely death, battered between forces far too big for its small sense of self.

Dare she leave her cage of iron behind? She’d slowly starve if he caught up to her fully. What else was she supposed to do but run? If he caught up to her, then she might not have needed to fight in the first place, against her near insurmountable foe. No, better to die fighting than to have not fought at all.

She started running—it was not something that came natural to her, since the legs she was using now were as foreign as her as breathing through air in her lungs. Her pursuer knew she was out of her element.

She could feel him catching up to her. The howling of his dogs, of his wolves, of his hunt followed after her. She left the car at the side of the road, and ran, towards the ocean, like a river seeking its home. She could smell it, feel the breeze in the wind.

The wind turned. The wind turned, and picked up speed. The wind turned, and amassed the towering clouds of strange colors behind him, piling up to dramatic heights and painting the sky yellow, even in the darkness of night. The scent of wildflowers hung in the air, a mix of wild roses and the electrifying feel of thunder. The memory that came with the change was visceral and immediate. There would be no escaping the King of Faerie. 

_"Why are you running?"_ the voice shouted behind her, taking the noise of the storm and amplifying it, like a natural intensifier of power. _"Why won’t you come here? Come closer, my darling!"_

She could hear the laughter in the voices of his dogs, terrifying beasts, who had once, perhaps, been human, but had long succumbed to the monstrous rage the King of Faerie could inflict on all his subjects. The wall of thunder crept unerringly closer and closer.

She kept running, her breath running out, her feet stumbling one step after the other. There was water in all things, and she could feel it, feel it running through her veins, and his, and all of his creatures. She could feel the water running alongside her, straining to reach the sea, just as she did. She could feel the water running through his body—but what use was it, knowing that he, too, was ultimately a creature of the sea, when he was so far from her influence? The beat accompanying the wild hunt grew stronger. Steady, like the beating of a heart. Insurmountable, like escaping the dogs of Faerie.

On the horizon, she could see the faint sliver of water, of corrugating waves crashing in foam over the surf. In her neck, she felt the slobber of his dogs, the warm breath of terrifying maws snapping close.

She closed her eyes. There was nothing for her in the fields and forests behind her. The steady beating of hearts advanced towards the sea. Every person, every thing behind her had a river flowing through them. That same river was on her mind when she prayed, when she begged for someone to save her. She was too far away from the sea, still. A phantom memory of the salty, tangy smell of waves crashing onto the shore swept her up. _'Please,'_ she begged, _'I give you my heart. I give you my soul. If you save me from the Kingdom of Faerie.'_

And then, with a wide swooping gesture, nature answered. She could feel the forces of nature welling up inside of her. Her core of water, her bones that were made from the sea and her marrow the ocean swelled up. The sea called to her, and in her moment of panic she answered. She shouted, she begged—she took up the call of the sea, raging towards the water.

The maws of the hunting dogs closed around her neck, gripped tight against each other. She passed between them, fleeing their desperate mouths, escaping through the cracks of the teeth among gnarling and fighting. She fell to the ground, flowing evermore, cascading down the steps of the field, downwards, always down, into the wide open space of the sea. She stretched onwards toward the sea, flooding the plains and nourishing wherever she fell. A river was born. Gentle flowing, and raging towards the sea, the maid of the sea had transformed into her likeness, leaving the King of Faerie with empty hands.

Behind her, the Hunt yowled, whined. The Hunt was stopped by the flowing tresses of her body, downwards, straining to the sea, and they would cross it nevermore. The river continued running to the sea.


End file.
